"Aspire" recorded by NY 4tet

OK, it's really cool (to me) that a fine jazz quartet (actually, a trio + 1) just recorded a tune of mine on their new CD. To make it super-duper cool (again, to me), they even made this tune their title track. :-)

The Westview Project is a really fine piano trio based in Rochester, NY (think: Eastman School of Music) that has been working together for several years. On their debut CD, they feature a wonderful tenor player named Doug Stone. As I understand things, Doug is an alum of the Maynard Ferguson Band, now working on a graduate jazz degree at Eastman. And, it turns out that, like me, he also graduated from Northern Illinois University, albeit a few years after I attended.

The CD is 8 originals by band-members or friends, 1 by me, and 1 lesser-played standard. Their reading of Aspire is delightful, and they took some refreshing liberties with the tune, moving the tonal center around a couple of times for the soloists. Well done!